Our View: Adding fuel to the fire

With tensions already running high over Mayor Will Flanagan's proposed budget and allegations of fiscal mismanagement flying in the face of Flanagan's threats of pink slips and a government shutdown if his budget is not approved, the last thing the city needed was a secondary storyline of intrigue to further muddy the waters....

With tensions already running high over Mayor Will Flanagan’s proposed budget and allegations of fiscal mismanagement flying in the face of Flanagan’s threats of pink slips and a government shutdown if his budget is not approved, the last thing the city needed was a secondary storyline of intrigue to further muddy the waters. But that’s exactly what happened when the School Department was locked out of the city’s accounting software.

From late May until Tuesday morning, the School Department’s financial director, Kevin Almeida, and other school officials had been shut out. The lockout hardly helped matters as officials on the municipal and school sides try to determine where the city stands in meeting the state’s 100 percent net school spending requirement.

The data denial only fueled allegations from some School Committee members, including School Committee Finance Committee Chairwoman Melissa Panchley, that the data block was punitive in nature, leaving School Committee members “in the dark” just prior to a key vote, in which the School Committee approved a $99.4 million school allocation over Flanagan’s $97 million proposal. Flanagan — who’s also chairman of the School Committee — was the lone vote for his school spending plan.

Panchley claims city officials told her the lockout — two days before the School Committee’s budget vote — was a matter of clamping down on security to the city’s fiscal records.

But the lockout could have put the School Department in a position of liability. In a memo, school Chief Financial Officer Michael Saunders warned city Treasurer John Nunes that “the current restriction is a material weakness in internal control and adversely hinders the School Finance Team in advising the School Committee on total school finances.”

The restricted city accounts school officials lost access to include those detailing indirect School Department expenditures — among them, health insurance costs, the department’s largest indirect expense, which will be a key figure when it comes to meeting the net school spending requirement.

Last week, the Flanagan administration told The Herald News that the net school spending deficit will not be known until year-end procedures are finalized. They said DESE has assured the city that as long as 95 percent of net school spending is met, there will be no state aid penalty.

When access to what had been routine information was suddenly restricted, it only fueled speculation in an already highly charged atmosphere.

Blocking the School Department from data ran contrary to the interests of sound fiscal management.